


Burn

by Viridian5



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-05-28
Updated: 1998-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:51:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something new can arise from the ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for "Quagmire," "The Red and the Black," and "The End."
> 
> Yes, it's another "The End" story, but this one does something the episode should have done but didn't. Why does CC tease us so?
> 
> Thanks to Te, my lovely and talented beta-reader.

_"You wither  
You blister  
I watch you burn and peel  
It's not like you  
Can save me  
It's not like you even care  
I'm finding it so hard to hold on_

_This is where it falls apart  
This is where it falls apart  
I feel helpless as my everything  
Comes crashing down on me"_  
\-- "Falls Apart" by Stabbing Westward  
\---------------------------------------------------------

Mulder still stood and stared. Scully had left a while ago when she realized that he wouldn't say anything or move or let her lead him away. Once or twice he closed his eyes and opened them in that attempt at magic he used to do as a kid, the one where he'd close his eyes before entering a room and wish that Samantha would be there when he opened them. It didn't work then, and it didn't work now. He saw the same thing with his eyes shut as he did with them open. Destruction. Nothing could bring back any of the things he'd lost.

He'd stopped noticing the reek of burnt plastic and paper long ago. It simply became part of the environment, part of his own scent. Water still dripped in places. Everything withered, blistered, burnt, and peeling away, twisted into new and frightening shapes.

He didn't think. White noise, static, crackled through his numbed brain. Dimly he felt his heart slowing, his skin growing cold and clammy. Shock, or part of himself willing death. It didn't surprise him that death hurt every bit as much as life. He'd always expected that.

If ever there had been a physical representation of his mind, it had been this office. Cluttered, dingy, isolated, and crammed full of images and facts. He appreciated the irony of being a person who lived more in his mind than anywhere else and having this office, another representation of the same, serving as more of a home than his apartment had ever been. He had felt safe here.

When he had first been led to the office his superiors had decided he deserved as department head of the X-Files, he knew what they expected from him. They wanted him to see this cramped, former copy room in the basement as a warning, an insult, and a punishment. The man who guided Mulder watched his face carefully for the look he should have had, for the regrets and second thoughts.

But Mulder started to grin. He saw the message and read it differently. He had succeeded in pissing _someone_ off. They found him threatening; they wanted him demoralized. It meant he was on the right track. He couldn't resist further baiting them by extravagantly praising the space when the disappointed guide asked Mulder what he thought of it. He spoke lovingly of the privacy and quiet.

For months afterward people still interrupted him occasionally trying to find the copy machine. _Their_ way of playing with him, trying to work on his nerves, make him surrender. He retaliated by giving his visitors a guided tour then finding the machine for them. Even now his lips twitched slightly upwards at the memory.

He had made this room his own, his sanctuary. Diana never really belonged here, and it surprised him not at all when she jumped for the first glamorous assignment that came her way. Scully came the closest to staking a claim, but a part of him would always see this place as his, even if it did seem emptier and darker without her around.

When Mulder had caught Skinner rummaging through the office, he'd almost said something that would have gotten him fired. //Stop trying to figure me out!// had been the first thought to run through his head, but Skinner didn't have a chance of separating the most important things from the important trivia.

Scully had once told him that he let everything take on a "warped significance." She didn't understand that everything _was_ important. Knowing this made him one of the bureau's most successful investigators. Everything was important.

Now he looked at the work of years lying in blackened ruins around him. His work and other agents' work, the labor of decades, lost, gone to ashes. Destroyed by fire, which he hated and feared because he loved it too much. Loved its flowing beauty and power, respected its overwhelming hunger.

Mulder suddenly realized that someone's hand rested on his shoulder. Had been resting on his shoulder for some time.

"You do know who did this," Krycek said. In faded black leather and denim he seemed to match the charred ruins.

Mulder couldn't even feel surprised. "Since when did the FBI start letting just anyone wander the halls? Security always checks me when I walk in."

"Maybe you look untrustworthy." Krycek looked around at the devastation. "This hurts, doesn't it?"

"Why, no, Krycek, this is the best day of my life."

"You don't get it, do you? They wouldn't do this if you weren't on the right track, doing things they find threatening."

"Consider me comforted. Why don't you just go and leave me to wallow in my own misery?"

"That's no fun. I could have killed you just now. You didn't even know I was here. I stood here watching you with my hand on your shoulder for five minutes."

"If your hand's squeezing my shoulder, you can't use your gun."

Krycek shrugged and changed the subject. "You have to admit that he's back to his old self. Death did him some good. Before they shot him he was becoming unfocused, distracted. A little downtime in Canada as a ghost, and he's back better than ever. And don't make any comments about Canada. I like Canada."

"When my side dies, it's forever. When yours does, it just means they've gone to another country."

"They're not my side. I'm my own side." Mulder felt Krycek shift next to him. "Maybe you're on the wrong side."

Mulder turned his head to look at his former partner. Krycek gazed back with a fire in his eyes that made Mulder shudder. The beauty, the power, the _hunger_...

Mulder could go for days at a time without thinking of a night at his apartment when Krycek had spoken of war and the refusal to submit and sealed an unspoken pact between them with a kiss. A kiss that had distracted Mulder out of his bitter despair and bolted him to the floor as Krycek left.

//I should have gone after him and brought him in. I didn't. He's doing it again. Am I going to let it work again?//

"Are you trying to seduce me?" Mulder asked and then promptly cursed himself. That wasn't what he meant to say at all... or at least not how he meant to say it.

Krycek smiled. "Do you want me to?" he asked in a voice that sounded playful, dead serious, and devastatingly sexy all at once.

Mulder's mind blacked out momentarily, leaving him standing there, staring, with his mouth slightly open. All that time, all those veiled comments and heated looks, and in one stupid-tired moment he'd forced it into the open. Do you want me to? //Do I?//

Krycek took him by the arm. "I'm sorry, Mulder. That was a stupid mistake." Before Mulder had a chance to whimper out a plea for--something--Krycek continued, "You're hardly in any kind of state to give me a decent answer. Going at you now is like propositioning a widow over the grave of her newly dead husband." Krycek smiled briefly, and his eyes seemed to gleam at a thought he kept to himself. Mulder shivered at the heat the sight inspired. "Besides, you reek right now. A shower, some rest, a little food, and it'll be a different story."

"So do you," Mulder said softly. When Krycek's eyebrow quirked in query, Mulder said, "Reek."

"Some things are easily fixed." Krycek started to pull him away, and Mulder, who had resisted all of Scully's attempts to do this, silently let it happen. He blamed it on the fatigue, or tried to.

* * *

Mulder let the spray wash over his head and tried to think only of the feel of the hot water running over his hair and skin. He still felt cold. He wanted to return to a state of mental and emotional numbness. If he started to think he knew he would run and never stop.

He was showering at Krycek's place.

"Hey, Mulder! Are you trying to dissolve yourself in there?" Krycek called from outside the door. Mulder could just make out his voice over the rushing water.

Mulder realized that he hadn't even picked up soap or shampoo; he just stood under the water. "Yeah," he answered shakily as he started to run the shampoo through his hair. He hadn't realized just how seriously the burnt stench of his office had permeated his hair, skin, and clothing until Krycek got him out of the Hoover building.

Mulder suddenly felt another hand in his hair, massaging his scalp. He jumped a little but Krycek standing behind him stopped him from slipping and falling. He backed into warm bare skin and had to throttle down an urge to panic.

"Let me help you, Mulder. I think you're still in shock."

//That Krycek, always trying to be helpful, even if it kills me,// but Mulder couldn't maintain his sarcastic cynicism and slowly calmed under the deft, sensuous touch. Once he realized that he'd been dawdling, Mulder had planned to just finish the shower, get himself cleaned up, as fast as possible, but Krycek's fingers felt so good. His scalp tingled, and he felt the knotted-up tension inside him start to drain away.

"Will you do mine for me?"

That would mean turning to face his former partner, acknowledging that he stood skin to skin with Krycek in such a small space. Mulder slowly turned, already missing Krycek's touch, and kept his eyes carefully away from the important bits as he reached for the bottle. Ignoring the challenging look that met him, Mulder proceeded to lavish as much care on the younger man's head as he had just received, only with two hands. It was only fair. Krycek hummed happily, and let him pull them both briefly, carefully, under the spray to rinse.

"Repeat? And dare I ask for conditioner?"

For the second round they stood even closer, and their hands became more daring. //You know where this is heading, Mulder, don't pretend you don't.// By the time they got to the conditioner they stood almost within one another's arms, erection to erection, and the feel of the spray against Mulder's sensitized skin sent pleasure sizzling through him.

"I think you're starting to come around." When Krycek bent down to pick up a bar of soap, he made sure he rubbed against Mulder all the way down and then up again. Mulder groaned. "Do you feel clean yet, Mulder?"

"No," Mulder moaned.

"Good." Krycek's slick, soapy hand wandered down Mulder's body, starting at the elegant neck and drifting down to the nipples, sliding over the ribcage and trailing further down. "Can't neglect this." His hand stroked Mulder's cock, alternating the lightest touches with grasping pulls. But just as Mulder reached the very edge, the hand fled, and he whimpered at its loss.

"Not yet." Krycek pulled him close for a deep kiss and started to grind against him. His hand played along Mulder's spine and stroked down his ass. Krycek gasped as Mulder's fingers scrabbled for a grip on him. "Is this what you want, Mulder?"

"Yes." //I want to, need to, burn with you.// As they kissed hungrily, they stroked and ground against one another, trying to touch and tantalize as much of the other's flesh as possible. Mulder came first with an agonized cry with Krycek soon following. Then Mulder started to shake.

Krycek held him and murmured, "It's okay. You've had a busy night. Everything will be better in the morning." He turned off the water, toweled Mulder dry, and put him to bed.

Despite his confusion and the hot, dark gaze watching him, Mulder immediately went to sleep.

* * *

An hour later Krycek climbed in next to and spooned against Mulder. He stroked the soft, drying hair and breathed in the scent of his own soap and shampoo on his new lover. //Mine. Try to back off from this, Mulder.//

He should have killed the smoking man when he had the chance, but he had been commanded not to, and, for now at least, he had to follow orders. At least publicly. They had to think they had tamed him, given him enough of what he wanted to gain what loyalty he had to give. He could afford to play Krycek the Errand Boy and Chauffeur for a while.

But the torching of Mulder's office by the bastard made Krycek's teeth clench. It may have knocked down enough of Mulder's shields to finally let this inevitable thing happen, but it seemed to have broken something as well. As much as it scared Krycek to admit it, he wanted to make that pain go away, fix everything and make Mulder safe.

Krycek knew what would make him feel better if _he_ were Mulder. //And if it makes me feel better too, all the better. I already have some ideas...// With visions of murder and mayhem dancing through his head, Krycek put his arm around Mulder and fell into a satisfied sleep.

### End


End file.
